The spectators and the athletes watched excitedly, expectantly as the torch-bearer held his torch aloft. The next moment, a loud cheer of approval rose up from the crowd. The Olympic flame had been lit, and now, after weeks of hype and preparation, the games could begin. Almost immediately afterwards, eight competitors, carefully hand-selected to represent their teams, lined up for the first event: the soil bag toss…
If you’re thinking to yourself now, “I don’t think we’re in Athens anymore,” well you are correct. We are at Cedar Creek Natural History Area in Bethel, Minnesota for the annual Intern Olympics where the athletes are ecology students, the Olympic flame is a lighter someone scrounged up from his pocket, and the events belong in a league of their own.

The soil toss	Weeding bench races

Cedar Creek looms large in the world of ecology as a research station that has consistently produced interesting, important, and innovative research on the ecology of ecosystems. You may or may not associate world-class science with significant amounts of rollicking, good-natured, ridiculous fun, but I don’t think the Cedar Creek Olympics can be classified as anything else. Even ecologists need to cut loose sometimes.
The spectators were principle investigators, post-doctoral researchers, graduate students and other Cedar Creek staff, many of whom had made the trek up from the University of Minnesota campus for the express purpose of attending the Olympics. The competitors were divided into two teams: the intern crew working on the BioCON (biodiversity under elevated carbon dioxide and nitrogen) project versus the intern crew working on the LTER (long term ecological research) project. Both teams looked strong and energetic. The LTER crew had a larger number of competitors, which seemed as though it could confer an advantage as they selected participants for each event. But, the less numerous BioCON crew refused to be intimidated, letting out some fearsome group roars directed at their opponents and spectators.
In the first event, the soil bag toss, four competitors from each team were given a tied plastic bag full of soil – a common sight around Cedar Creek when soil samples are being taken, since plastic bags are the chosen method of transporting soil from the field to the sheds where it is ground up for chemical analysis. The competitors were instructed to take turns and toss their bags toward a metal post in the ground several meters away, sort of the ecological equivalent of a beanbag toss. Whoever landed her bag closest to the post without going beyond the post or breaking her bag would win a point for her team.
Amidst steady streams of shouted advice and encouragement from spectators and teammates the competitors launched their bags. Most of the bags wobbled and wiggled on weird trajectories that landed far short of the post, but two – both launched by BioCONers – made their way in almost graceful arcs in the general direction of the post. No delicate measuring equipment was necessary; BioCON was declared winner of the event.
Next came the fiercely competitive relay race, a true test of the interns’ endurance. For the first leg, each team chose an intern to perch on a bench – the usual function of which is to allow interns to weed experimental plots without stepping on plants – which was then manned by four other interns, one at each bench leg. Carrying the bench and perched intern (who, on both teams, was selected for a particularly petite size) the teams of carriers raced the course to tag off to waiting three-legged racers. The three-legged racers hopped and skipped their ways back to tag off to pairs of wheelbarrow racers who frenetically scrambled across the course to the bench teams who finished up the last leg. Both the LTER and BioCON teams looked as though they had been training for this event all summer, displaying remarkable amounts of wacky coordination. But in the end BioCON pulled ahead and won this event as well, amassing a lead of two points.

Searching for clues in the scavenger hunt	Sweet revenge

The scavenger hunt was next up. The full teams worked against each other to find and solve 7 clues that required knowledge of a mix of Cedar Creek history, geography, and trivia. BioCON dominated this event, finishing substantially before LTER. But, as BioCON came back to the central field singing “We Are the Champions” delightfully out of tune, LTER decided to take matters into their own hands. Egged on by some graduate students (who had once worked with LTER themselves) they purloined water balloons that had been prepared for a later event and launched a watery attack against the victors.
Security was called in, but - being a natural history area - Cedar Creek has none, so diplomatic action was taken instead. The Olympics coordinators masterfully convinced everyone to leave the remaining balloons alone, stressing that the balloons were needed for later, and the games then proceeded with a bread-eating contest.
In the grand tradition of eating contests the premise was simple but the actual eating was grueling. Five interns from each team lined up and received buns. The eating proceeded down the lines, the second intern only being allowed to begin when judges had verified that the first intern’s mouth was empty, and so on. The bread of choice was the dinner roll, surprisingly difficult to eat in its fluffy dryness. The rolls stuck in competitors’ mouths and sapped all their saliva stores, evincing some grimaces from the eaters worthy of Barnum & Bailey’s. BioCON swiftly pulled ahead in the race, as their team nibbled away like hungry rodents.

Bread eating contest	Plant identification

As the gap between the teams grew, sources overheard that one of the judges was willing to be bribed with a doctorate, and rumors of possible saliva doping were on the verge of surfacing. However, upon the announcement of the next event LTER’s confidence was restored and the beginnings of scandal were quelled. It had come time for the plant identification contest. The teams were given 7 minutes to try to identify 16 species of unknown plants - found at Cedar Creek but not in the experiments - that had been collected by the resident naturalist. Then, Dr. Dave Tilman upped the ante, by throwing a cash incentive down on the table, “in the name of botanical excellence” he said. With two interns highly skilled in botany, LTER easily out-identified BioCON, correctly naming twice as many of the species.
LTER continued their comeback with a resounding victory in the tug-of-war. In a spectacular show of tugging unity it took them only moments to defeat BioCON, who had been the heavy favorite because of their abundance of well-muscled males. BioCON, it seemed, simply never managed to find their characteristic team coordination.
The final event of the Olympics was a water balloon-shooting contest, in which the interns used large slingshots to catapult balloons at target posts. To make things more exciting, the principle investigators and the intern coordinators sportingly agreed to place themselves out in the field as extra targets, worth large sums of points. Of course, all fire was immediately directed toward the living targets, but the fickle water balloons kept going slightly astray, missing their marks, and bursting innocuously on the grass. Finally one balloon soared directly towards Dr. Tilman and landed with a satisfying plop where he was standing. Whoops and cries of victory burst forth from the water balloon slingers, but the triumph was short lived, for Dr. Tilman called out that the balloon had not hit him! It had landed exactly between his feet, and had not even gotten his shoes wet.

Tug of war	Taking aim at the scientists

Unbeknownst to the targets, smug and dry in the field, insurrection was brewing amongst the interns. Suddenly, BioCON and LTER united, grabbed water balloons and stormed the field, bombarding the unfortunate scientists standing there. But as water balloon fights are wont to do, this coordinated offensive quickly turned into an each-man-for-himself frenzy of soaking. Some interns climbed up on the roof (which, by the way, is not condoned by management) and began dropping balloons from above while others dragged out a hose and started spraying indiscriminately in retaliation. By the time the balloons ran out, there was not a person who was not dripping. Nor was there a person whose sides were not aching with laughter. What a closing ceremony!